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Category: computing

I’m amazed no one has done this before, and there’s only one company doing it now. Microfabrica, based in Van Nuys, California, has perfected the technique of mass producing mechanical devices using the same electrodeposition technology used to make computer chips.

“We are the only high-volume production additive manufacturing platform in the market,” Microfabrica CEO Eric Miller tells me. “We use engineering grade metals to make commercially robust parts, and we’re focused on another end of the spectrum from where a lot of the 3D companies are focused, and that’s at the micro scale.”

The resulting devices are vanishingly small, and exquisitely made. How small? The company makes biopsy forceps less than a millimeter in diameter for a medical device company and timing mechanisms (i.e., clocks) that are less than half a centimeter across for a defense contractor, as well many other very small devices and precision parts.

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Saya is a computer-generated school girl created by Japanese artists Teruyuki Ishikawa and Yuka Ishikawa. She looks so detailed that she has broken past the uncanny valley, and she could herald a new era in CGI.

Japanese artists Teruyuki Ishikawa & Yuka Ishikawa (a.k.a Telyuka) have given birth to Saya, and she’s remarkable. But despite how realistic she may look, she’s not real. Rather, she’s a computer-generated rendition of a school girl.

Telkuya started the Saya project in 2015, and they have been working to constantly improve her—make her more detailed and more life-like.

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In recent years, it’s been exciting watching advances in AI like IBM’s Watson smashing humans at Jeopardy and Google’s AlphaGo AI beating champions at the game of Go a decade earlier than expected. But the sophisticated algorithms under the hood are really the stars of the show.

These powerful computing systems are fundamentally changing industries and automating a growing number of day-to-day tasks. At the same time, AI still isn’t perfect, and we’ve seen hints of its potential dark side. Our algorithms are only as good as the data we feed them. And there’s been a spirited debate about existential dangers down the road.

Here’s a look into some of the topics leading the dialogue as AI technology evolves into its next generation.

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SRI International, the Silicon Valley research lab where Apple’s virtual assistant Siri was born, is working on a new generation of virtual assistants that respond to users’ emotions.

As artificial-intelligence systems such as those from Amazon, Google, and Facebook increasingly pervade our lives, there is an ever greater need for the machines to understand not only the words we speak, but what we mean as well—and emotional cues can be valuable here (see “AI’s Language Problem”).

“[Humans] change our behavior in reaction to how whoever we are talking to is feeling or what we think they’re thinking,” says William Mark, who leads SRI International’s Information and Computing Sciences Division. “We want systems to be able to do the same thing.”

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Not a complete list — where are al the various joint ventures & start ups that are also in play; however, what about all those Laboratories (Governmental, Universities, and joint venture related labs) such as Los Alamos or ORNL or MIT or USC, and what about all of the governmental agencies (NASA, DoD, etc.), and how about all of those special programs like DARPA. And, this is only the US not to mention what has been happening in China, Australia, Canada, UK, Spain, Germany, Russia, Singapore, etc.

Nice article to use as a starting list only; itmissed many, many other companies, labs, universities, and governments who are really leading most of the progress forward in QC. Some start up to add — Qubitekk, QC Ware, Rigetti Computing to just name 3 off the top of my head. Article is missing a lot in its list.

Google, Microsoft, and Airbus are investing in quantum computing. In all, we identified 18 corporates developing the tech, or partnering with startups like D-Wave to do so, and what they hope to achieve.

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Electromagnetic waves created on a layer of organic molecules could provide the perfect on-chip light source for future quantum communication systems.

A team of scientists including researchers at Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, has captured tiny flashes of light from an ultrathin layer of organic molecules sandwiched between two electrodes that could replace lasers and LEDs as signal sources for future miniature, ultrafast quantum computing and light-based communication systems.

To investigate electromagnetic waves called plasmons, which skim along the interface between two materials, Nikodem Tomczak from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and colleagues collaborated with Christian A. Nijhuis from the National University of Singapore to construct a junction consisting of a layer of thiol molecules on a metal electrode and liquid gallium-indium alloy as a top electrode.

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Nice.

Crocus Technology, a leading developer of Tunneling Magnetoresistive Sensors (TMR) based on proprietary and patented Magnetic Logic Unit (MLU) technology, announces the availability of the CT51x digital switch, the first in a series of fully integrated digital sensors the company has launched. This family of devices accommodates a wide range of applications with larger air gaps, smaller magnetic fields, and significantly lower power consumption. The CT51x enables high-accuracy position detection, control and power switching functions with high sensitivity and reliability that system designers demand for the IoT, consumer and industrial applications.

“With ever increasing demand for intelligent sensing in smart products, the CT51x family of devices offers design-in flexibility and cost-savings for existing and emerging applications: IoT, wearables, appliances, smart meters, intelligent smart locks and other consumer products,” said Zack Deiri, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Crocus Technology. “The market is gravitating towards intelligent solid-state magnetic switches that provide higher reliability, faster frequency response, and extremely low power consumption for battery-powered applications in a smaller form factor, such as the CT51x.”

When used as a proximity switch, the CT51x can detect window or door movement in intrusion alarm systems and appliances. The digital switch can also activate wake-up and sleep modes in mobile devices such as laptops with lid open/closed detection with extremely low power consumption. The CT51x also measures rotation speed in battery-powered smart flow meters and can act as a safeguard against tampering in smart utility meters where annual losses surpass a billion dollars.

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Hmmmm; I suggest that “Kate” needs to follow up with the research teams at the University of Sydney, MIT, ORNL, and University of China who have already proven and shared insights and techniques to stabilize QC, make it scalable (as we are already seeing Google leverage), and trace particles throughout entanglement. I really do not like ready articles that misleads the public because the author was lazy in not doing their own research and homework on their topics.

Today I’d like to speak about quantum computers and to share my ideas of their purpose in the nearest future. As you know, applying the laws of quantum mechanics it’s actually possible to create a new type of computing machine, enabling to solve some of the issues, being currently unable to resolve even upon the use of the most powerful machines. As a result, the speed of major complex computations will significantly increase, for instance, the messages sent via quantum coupling lines will be impossible to capture or to copy. Sounds quite fantastic, isn’t it? Furthermore, today we already have working prototypes of future quantum computers. So, let’s consider this topic more precisely.

How does quantum computer work?

In order to understand working mechanism of a quantum computer, it’s preferable to recollect some general basics of quantum systems.

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